Anna
by LonelyStar and GoldenDragon
Summary: On the night before her sister's coronation, Anna wishes upon a star that she could know why Elsa is so distant. That night, she has a dream in which she explores her own mind to look for the answer. Guided by her self-knowledge, she confronts the many aspects of her psyche. The answer is in there somewhere, but this may be one time where the journey is as important as the goal.
1. Wish Upon a Star

The evening before the coronation of Princess (soon to be Queen) Elsa, Anna, the second princess of Arendelle, was sitting in her room, looking out her window, and wondering why Elsa was so distant.

"We used to be best friends when we were young... what happened to you, Elsa? Why are you so scared all the time?"

The setting sun gave her no answer, and she sighed. Earlier that day, she had tried once again to reconnect with her sister Elsa, only to be rebuffed once again. Anna was not a person given to pensiveness, but she was frustrated. The fact that the next day was the day that she'd finally get to see her sister in an environment where Elsa couldn't run away or slam a door in her face only accentuated the issue.

As the sunset colors faded from the sky and the first stars became visible, Anna focused on the first star she saw, and recited the 'wish upon a star' rhyme Elsa had told her when they were little, modified to fit the occasion:

_Star light, Star bright, _

_The first star I see tonight. _

_I wish I may, I wish I might, _

_Know the cause of Elsa's fright._

The star twinkled brightly. Anna sighed once more, and then she decided that she was _done _with the sighing. She was in that mood because she was tired, and so it was bedtime. Tomorrow was the day that she would finally be able to meet her sister and maybe wrangle some truth out of her, so it was time to stop sighing over the past and start singing for the future.

Anna yawned. She really was tired. Perhaps she'd sing tomorrow, but for now, Anna got into her nightgown, undid her braids, and climbed into her bed, snuggling in under the covers. The bed was warm, and Anna was asleep very quickly. That first star twinkled brightly in the ever-deepening night outside her window.

Anna slept, and dreamed, while that star twinkled overhead.

It was the strangest dream that Anna had ever had.


	2. The Answer Lies Within You

**Chapter 2**

**The Answer Lies Within You**

**A.N. Disclaimer (because I forgot to do one last chapter): I do not own Anna, or indeed, Frozen in general. That right belongs to the Walt Disney company. This fanfiction is done for pleasure alone. If you want to pay someone, pay them.**

Anna slowly opened her eyes and sat up. It was still night out. Anna was confused, as she had always been a deep sleeper. She didn't usually wake up in the middle of the night. _Stay _up until the middle of the night, sure (quite often), but not wake up. And when she did, she usually wasn't as wide awake as she felt. She patted her head. Her braids were still undone, but her hair was lying (mostly) flat, instead of the horrific bedhead she usually got after a good night's tossing, turning, and nearly falling off the bed. Anna may have been a _deep_ sleeper, but she was _not_ a quiet one.

Anna noticed something odd about the sky outside, and quickly got up and ran to the window. What she saw there was a completely dark sky. There was no moon, and only one star, the star she had wished upon that night. However, the room was as light enough to see, even if everything did look a little flat.

Anna's confusion at this was interrupted by a knock on the door. Wondering who in the rather empty castle would want to see her at night, she got up and answered the door, and gasped in surprise.

It was Elsa.

She was exactly as Anna remembered her sister, in the formal wear that Anna had mostly seen her sister in for the last few years. The only difference was that she had no gloves.

While Anna stared wordlessly on, Elsa took the time to introduce herself.

"Hello, Anna. I see that I have surprised you. I believe that I must assure you that I am not your sister. I merely look like her. Elsa is not here. You may call me the Guide."

A very surprised Anna asked her: "Who are you? Why do you look like my sister? What's going on?"

The Guide smiled. "We are in your mind. Although, mind is perhaps not the correct word. Soul, maybe. Or then again, maybe not. The exact nature of this place is a mystery, even to me. Anyways, this is you. It's where all the different aspects of you live. Everyone you meet here is you, including me. I am your guide through this place. And as for why I look like Elsa, let us merely say that you must respect your sister very much to choose her as your guide through your soul."

Anna was quiet for a few moments (small miracle). This was a lot to take in. She finally took a deep breath and asked the Guide:

"So, why am I here? I don't remember dreaming about this before. Although, there was this one time when I was five, and I sort of remember a castle, but I'm pretty sure that dream ended up with me learning to fly by dancing to a folk song I had stuck in my head. Or maybe that was the one when I was eleven. I get them mixed up sometimes."

The Guide smiled in that gentle, knowing way of hers. It was odd, now that Anna thought about it, but she rarely saw that expression on her sister's face. Elsa had smiled when they were little, but not usually like that, and lately, Elsa hadn't smiled much. Anna continued to hope that the coronation would get her a chance to fix that. Elsa looked so beautiful when she smiled.

The Guide walked over to the window, where that one star twinkled in the sky. She looked at it for a little, and then faced Anna and said:

"You wished upon that star to know why Elsa was so frightened. The answer lies within you, and I am here to guide you to what you seek, under the light of the star that granted your wish."

Anna was interested and excited. "You mean, I'll finally be able to really talk to her about what she's scared of, instead of just extending the invitation and hoping for the best?"

Anna was pretty ecstatic. She'd attempted to reconnect with Elsa during her childhood, but she had always been rebuffed, and she had eventually stopped trying (mostly). Now, though, she had an actual chance, and she was _definitely _taking it.

"All right," she told the Guide, "Lead me on."

The Guide smiled again and crossed to the open door, where she beckoned to Anna, and Ana followed her out into the hall.

The hall was also different. The windows were still as shuttered as Anna remembered, and no torches burned to illuminate the hall, but it was lit by the same uniform dusky light as in her room. The light came from everywhere, and so without shadows, most things looked somewhat flat. It was strange.

The Guide explained to Anna: "Somewhere in here is the reason why Elsa is frightened. One of your personas probably knows where it is, so we should search for her first. And, you should always remember, you can never know Elsa before you know yourself."

Anna asked the Guide: "So, what does that mean?"

The Guide looked ahead and said: "It means we have a journey ahead of us. Let us go on."

The Guide and Anna walked down the hall. As Anna followed her, she looked back at her room and noticed something.

"Why is there ice around the door?"

And indeed, there was ice. There wasn't much of it, but it was definitely there.

The Guide responded, looking at the ice with a troubled expression: "I do not know."

Anna shrugged, filed that interesting factoid away for later, and she and her Guide continued walking. The walk was quiet, and Anna hummed a traditional ice-harvest song that kept getting stuck in her head to keep the silence away. After she'd finished the song, she asked the Guide:

"Um, I'd like to know, where are we going?"

While continuing on her way, the Guide said: "That is a good question, Anna. We are searching for where the answer is, and it may be anywhere."

The Guide looked at Anna, gave a rather embarrassed look, and admitted: "In other words, I do not know where our destination is either. We are simply exploring in hopes of finding it."

The pair continued on their way down the hall, their feet making no sound on the soft carpet. The rest of the hall was quiet, and empty. It was almost too quiet, the kind of quiet that gets on your nerves. Anna was not a quiet person. She didn't really like the quiet. So, she decided to fill the quiet, again. She asked the Guide:

"Who are you, really? I mean really. Other than 'the Guide', I mean, I know that, but you said that everyone here is a part of me, and I just want to know which one you are, you know? Ack, this is getting awkward... I'll just shut up now."

The Guide shook her head: "No, it is a good question, and one I really should answer. Anna, I'm your self-knowledge. That is why I am the guide- I am the part of you who knows about this place."

Anna then asked: "So... you look like Elsa because I subconsciously chose her as my guide? Why?"

The Guide answered the question and turned it back on Anna: "Because you trust her, and you look up to her. Now it is my turn to ask; why?"

Why, indeed? Elsa had always been more graceful than her, more elegant, more... _princess-y_. She was that unreachable star, a shining example of everything Anna _should _be.

But... she hadn't been a very good sister. They'd been close, long ago. But that had been when they were five. They had played together, built snowmen out in the fjords together, did _everything _together.

And then, they hadn't. Elsa had rebuffed her invitations. She had hid herself away in her room. They lived in the same castle, but barely saw one another. Elsa had never been there for her. When she was lonely, stuck in the castle all the time, Elsa hadn't played with her. When her parents had died, Elsa hadn't comforted her, in the darkest days of Anna's life. Elsa had locked herself away in her rooms, and metaphorically pushed away Anna's hand when Anna reached for her.

Of course, finding out _why _Elsa behaved that way was why she was here in the first place. But still...

"Um, Guide? If you're not Elsa, then can you do something to make yourself _not _look like her so much? See, I'm here to _find _Elsa, and it's kind of disconcerting to have her with me the whole time. So maybe you could take off your dress... wait, on second thought, don't do that... well, do something to your appearance."

The Guide smiled. "Of course, Anna. How about I let down my hair? It would be easy enough, and distinctive. Elsa does not let her hair down, as far as you and thus I know."

The Guide undid the bun she wore, and swept the resulting french braid through her shoulder. "That better?" she asked. Anna nodded. A thought caught her mind.

"You wanted me to come to that conclusion, didn't you?"

The Guide shook her head. "I just asked the question that was waiting to be asked. I did not know what your conclusion would be. But if questions are not asked, answers are not found. And I am _made_ of answers."

The Guide was certainly happy to have answers, as she smiled contently and hummed the same song that had been stuck in Anna's head. And, come to think of it, Anna was happy too, or at least calm. Really understanding why she was there had lifted a heavy burden from her, and now she was clear to focus single-mindedly on finding Elsa.

She should not have thought that. The Universal Laws of Irony still existed, even in this strange world, and when Fate was tempted, it would respond.

As Anna and her guide turned a corner, Anna saw herself, sitting down by a door with a sad expression on her face. The Anna by door was wearing the mourning clothes that Anna had worn after the death of her parents. Indeed, she looked exactly like Anna had when she had begged her sister, one last time, to come out and help Anna get through that troubled time after her mother and father had died. But Elsa had not answered, not come. Not returned Anna's friendship.

And Anna had buried her parents alone.

A wave of sadness overcame Anna when she saw herself as she had been then in those dark and lonely days. Anna had hoped that it was past her, but still the wounds in her heart from when her parents died ached whenever she was reminded of the time.

When the black-clothed Anna noticed Anna and the Guide, she smiled. But it wasn't a happy smile. It was more a gesture of resignation, an acknowledgment of bitter irony. It was disturbing for Anna to see that expression on her own face, and she hoped that she would never see it again. Anna didn't _do_ resignation. She didn't _do_ despair. There was _always_ a strand of hope in any situation, and as long as it was there, Anna would grab for it.

The Anna in the mourning gown got up from her position at the door, and bowed to Anna and the Guide. She then said: "It's nice to see you, Anna. Tell me, is it true that your worthless sister has brought you here, into yourself?"

**A.N. Yes, the 'through her shoulder' thing was intentional. It refers to how when the actual Elsa let down her hair during 'Let It Go', the animators just could not get it to go over her shoulders, so they ended up having to phase it through the shoulders and use sneaky angles so that no one would notice.**


	3. You Buried Your Parents Alone

**A.N. If you have any writing advice, don't hesitate to give it to me. Once again: I don't own Frozen.**

"Tell me, is it true that your worthless sister has brought you here, into yourself?"

That was a question Anna didn't really know how to answer. Mostly because it involved the word 'worthless' being used after 'your' and in front of 'sister'. That just wasn't how Anna rolled, no matter how distant Elsa became. Hearing it from herself just sounded wrong. Like divided-by-zero wrong. But no matter how weird it seemed, she had to talk to herself. Perhaps this her would know the answer.

Also, to not rebut herself-in-mourning-clothes would be to back down from a confrontation over what Anna truly believed in, and that wasn't how Anna rolled either. Except that if Anna was Anna, then the other Anna would also be Anna, and... oh, this was _confusing. _If Anna didn't find something to call the Anna who didn't like Elsa, she was going to tie her brain in knots. So she asked the other Anna:

"Before I answer your question, is there anything you call yourself? I mean, other than Anna, because _I'm_ Anna. Well, we're both Anna. Still, it's really confusing to call you me when you aren't me. Or, well you are, but... see what I mean?"

The dark Anna appeared to consider it. She said: "You have a point."

Anna took that as approval for the idea, and asked: "Well, you're wearing my mourning gown, so how about we call you Mourning Anna?"

The newly-dubbed Mourning Anna nodded and answered: "Yes, that seems appropriate."

With that done, Anna plowed on: "So, I'm the original Anna, so I thought that should be what we call me."

The Guide then tapped Anna on the shoulder and told her: "Ah, actually, you are not."

Anna turned around and gave the Guide an odd look. "I'm not?" she asked.

The Guide told her: "The original Anna is here, somewhere. But you are not her. You have changed, Anna. You are a different person than you once were."

The Guide gestured to Mourning Anna, and told the other Anna: "You were her, once."

Anna was mildly horrified by that statement. She didn't want to be like Mourning Anna. She didn't want to hate her sister. She didn't want to despair. She asked the Guide: "Was I?"

It was Mourning Anna who answered her.

"Yes, Anna, you were. I truly came into being the day your parents died. The day you reached out to your sister and she failed to respond. That day, you buried your parents alone. And that day, sitting outside the doors to Elsa's room, you felt true despair, Anna. That day, you were me."

Anna was disturbed by that. She had seen the level of hopelessness on Mourning Anna's face, and she did not want it to have ever been on hers. It was _wrong_ somehow, as against the natural order of the universe as a four-sided triangle. Except, Anna had never seen a four-sided triangle, and if she was honest with herself (which she was), she had indeed worn that expression of utter hopelessness.

The Guide and Mourning Anna were right. She had despaired, that day. And that made Anna being completely without hope entirely possible, while a four-sided triangle was still as unimaginable as ever.

Anna really needed to work on her metaphors (or was that a simile?).

Anyways, she needed a new nickname. And, more than that, she needed to _focus_ on getting herself a new nickname. She needed to tear her brain away from its morbid fascination with her mental state when she had attended her parents' burial with no one to catch and support her as she slipped and fell into despair.

She mused out loud: "Okay. So, I'm not the original Anna, so I can't be called that. My nickname should be something that, y'know, actually relates to the part of Anna I am... but wait, I _am_ Anna, not just a part, so that'll be a bit tricky. And we're all Anna, so just being called Anna wouldn't work. Well, Mourning Anna is named after her clothes, so maybe... no, Nightgown Anna just sounds stupid... hey, Mourning Anna is still in mourning, right? So maybe I could base the name on mental state... ugh, that sounds more complicated than the first thing. Wait a minute- I'm here because I'm looking for the cause of Elsa's fear, right? I'm on a quest! So, guys- or girls- how does Questing Anna sound?"

She flashed a smile around her, looking for the approval of the other two there. Both the Guide and Mourning Anna nodded their assent, and the now-christened Questing Anna was happy with her new nickname.

Until, of course, Mourning Anna had to go ruin the nice distraction that Questing Anna had set up for herself. She said:

"So it's true. You _did_ come here because of Elsa. Such a worthless waste of your effort. She still won't answer."

Before Questing Anna could protest in any way, Mourning Anna stepped aside from her position by the door and pointed at it.

"Look there," she said.

Questing Anna looked. Now that she got a closer look at it, she saw something that she hadn't seen before.

The door was covered in a thin sheet of ice. It was transparent and not easy to casually notice, but it was there. The ice covered the whole door, the hinges, and the space between the door and the wall. Until the ice was melted/broken, there would be no way to get the door open.

When she was sure that Questing Anna had taken it all in, Mourning Anna said:

"The door's completely iced over because Elsa doesn't want to be near you. As she has given you the 'cold shoulder', so to speak, so has the door that to you represents the way into Elsa's heart. That ice can't be broken, Questing Anna. Elsa has turned you away. She doesn't love you, nor anyone. Her heart is frozen."

Those words hit Questing Anna right where it hurt. She had often wondered if Elsa _did_ have a frozen heart, after all Anna had tried to get into Elsa's heart, and all the times she'd still been rebuffed. She had reassured herself that Elsa was merely misguided. But she had wondered.

The song stuck in her head took on an ominous tone.

But the first verse, once it was in the forefront of her mind, pushed her thoughts in a new direction. The song was a folk tune about harvesting ice, and it spoke of cutting through the ice, and getting through to the frozen heart. It gave Questing Anna hope. Yeah, it was probably a weird thing to get hope from, but then again, Anna _was_ weird. She was also hopeful. That was just who she was. Hopeless Anna was _not_ Anna.

Anna may have been hopeless once, but not today. If she lost hope, then she lost everything. So she wouldn't lose hope, and if she did, she'd regain it as soon as possible.

And now she had an answer for Mourning Anna:

"I didn't come here for Elsa to answer. I came to discover _why_ she doesn't. The Guide told me that the answer lies within me. There is an answer, and I want to know it. Perhaps it's that Elsa just doesn't like me. Perhaps it is that she has grown into a huge jerk. If that's the reason, then I'll accept it. But not knowing would be worse. There's always a chance that I can cut through the ice to Elsa's heart, and as long as I look for it, I might find it. If I don't look, it'll always be the same as if Elsa turned into a jerk. But I believe in my sister. I believe that she is a good person, and has a reason for what happened, and I

_will_ find it out."

Mourning Anna lifted an eyebrow in a gesture of skepticism that Questing Anna desperately wished she herself could get right. She told Questing Anna: 

"You're setting yourself up to fail, Questing Anna. I should know, I'm the you who did that once. It didn't work then and it won't work now."

Questing Anna responded to her dark duplicate: "You can't know until you try."

Mourning Anna sighed and said: "But you _can_ use the past to predict the most likely future. And based on your past with Elsa, her having decided that she had become a grown-up girl and too adult to play with her little sister is far more likely than it being something that you can change. Seriously, Questing Anna, you've been trying for eighteen years now. It is likely that if there was a way for you to befriend her, you would have done it by now."

As much as Questing Anna hated to admit it, Mourning Anna had a point. She'd tried and tried again over the years with no success. This method might be stranger than the others, but still it was but one try of many. What _did_ make her think that this one would succeed?

This was the sort of question that was meant to have no answer, but Anna wasn't the sort to play by those sorts of rules. She had an answer.

Nothing.

She had absolutely no reason to believe that this adventure would get her any more than the strangest dream she had experienced (including the one where she learned to fly by dancing to folk music).

But Questing Anna would do it anyways, because she loved her sister and believed that Elsa was worth any chance of reconnection. Any chance at all. She told Mourning Anna:

"I stand by my previous statement. I'm staying on this."

She turned to the Guide and said: "Come on, Guide. Let's go on."

The Guide shook her head and said: "No, Questing Anna. It is not that simple. Now that your journey has truly begun, you need to know where you are going. We cannot just wander aimlessly any more. Mourning Anna should have an idea of where we are going."

Oh, now that was just great. Questing Anna asked the Guide:

"Seriously?"

The Guide nodded.

Questing Anna said: "That seems a bit contrived to me."

The Guide explained: "Your journey here is a journey of knowledge. You began the journey not knowing anything, so you had to trust in blind chance for your first breakthrough. Now that you have begun, you cannot trust in simple luck to guide you through. You must build on your existing knowledge. You need to know where to go next."

Questing Anna considered what the Guide had said. She still didn't think too much of it, but if that really was what needed to happen, then it would probably be best to play along. She asked Mourning Anna: 

"So, will you..."

She never got the chance to finish. Mourning Anna cut her off with a short: 

"No."

Questing Anna asked: 

"Why not?"

It was was Questing Anna had expected to happen, but still, she would like an explanation. Mourning Anna provided one for her:

"I will not allow you to go on such a fool's errand. Look, Questing Anna, I care about you. If you go on this journey, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. I don't want to see you hurting again."

Questing Anna did not respond to that very illuminating explanation of Mourning Anna's motives. Her mind was already made up. She was going to continue her journey. But where to go next...

"_Try the picture room."_

Questing Anna perked up at that. She didn't know quite where the idea came from, but it was a start. To the picture room she'd go, then. She told the Guide:

"I know where we're going next. It's the picture room." 

The picture room- the place where she'd spent much of her childhood, looking at the paintings and thinking about the outside world that they represented.

The Guide raised a skeptical eyebrow (Oh, how Questing Anna wished she could pull that off!), and asked:

"So, where did that notion come from?

Questing Anna shrugged.

"I dunno," she said, "but it's a start, and it's the only way I'm going to get anywhere from here. I'm going. Are you?"

The Guide nodded. "I will always, go with you, Questing Anna. That is why I am the Guide."

Mourning Anna then surprised Questing Anna by saying:

"I'm going too."

When Questing Anna gave her a surprised look, Mourning Anna explained:

"I want to protect you, and I can't do that if you're in the picture room and I'm over here."

Truth be told, Questing Anna would rather not be traveling with her inner bitterness and despair, but she didn't think she could prevent Mourning Anna from coming, so she nodded at Mourning Anna, and then set out with her two companions for her next destination.

They reached the picture room with no further incident, and Questing Anna opened the door. She wondered what she would find inside. Would it be her inner stir-craziness? Her inner child? Her inner friendly nature?

What she did find was the picture room, exactly like she remembered it, except for one detail. A blast of nostalgia for all the time she'd spent in this very room as a child assaulted her, and then she noticed the one new detail.

An Anna, her hair done up in a complicated braid/bun-like style and wearing a green gown and necklace, was sitting on the chair under one of the pictures. Once she caught sight of Questing Anna and party, she quickly got up and hurried over. She greeted Questing Anna with:

"Hi, Other Me! Do you like the new look? It's for tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it; so much is gonna change!"

**In case you couldn't figure it out already, the new Anna is wearing Anna's coronation gown, and her hairstyle is Anna's coronation style.**


End file.
